Glancing Blow:Fonaibung: It's not. Older whiskey (bourbon, scotch, rye) is almost always less flavorful than the younger stuff when you get to a brand of decent quality. It's just marketing.

As a drinker of Johnny Walker Blue Label I have to totally disagree with you. I've had their black, gold, green, and blue labels, and the blue is a 10.

Maybe I just lack the fine tastes required, but I could barely tell the difference between Johnny Walker Black and Johnny Walker Blue. Every year on my birthday (which is coming up on Wednesday, incidentally) I try a new $20/shot (the highest priced they have available) whiskey at my whiskey bar, and Johnny Walker Blue was one I tried a couple of years ago, after having regularly drank Johnny Walker Black for several months prior. Of every $20/shot whiskey I've tried, that one was by far the most underwhelming, and the only one where I didn't feel like it would be worth it to ever get another one.

/My favorite was a 20 year old A. H. Hirsch bourbon that I had shortly before it disappeared from the face of the planet. Soooooo gooooood...//Wish I had invested in a few bottles before it disappeared, could have probably made back more than enough money to cover the initial investment and still have a couple bottles sitting around...///I saw bottles of it selling on ebay for ~$500 that were probably $150-200 originally

I might actually -- i gave you a colour and a note about sending you some booze. I'm moving for work soon and summer employments are spent without technology so pen palling someone regarding booze might be fun.

lemme figure out where im headed because any packages i get after this month will have to be addressed to a government office. I like the idea though.

You claim to be not a hophead, but you prefer jargons and indecipherably specific jargon with numbers. acronym.

You'd best start believing in hopheads, alienated, because you're in you are one.

Hmm. When I started brewing, i was a huge hophead. 20 years later, I no longer prefer the bitterness. I have always been a big beer type, so doppelbock was a natural way for me to go.Much more malty than bitter . I still like barleywine, but aged. And if one cannot understand what 35 degrees fahrenheit is expressed as 35 d F, thats too bad. Im not going to muck about looking for the degree keyboard character for one thread.

Anything over 20 will either have been stored in hand-carved barrels, in IAMFA-certified conditions or will be shiat. Rot is a battle that time always wins. If the whisky has been stored in clay or metal it may as well be 2 weeks old as 20 years.

I think that's correct, based on my empirical observations. Seems that flavor and nose go up until about 16 years, then the price goes up exponentially, but the quality plateaus. I've seen that with Glenfarclas and Aberlour.

You claim to be not a hophead, but you prefer jargons and indecipherably specific jargon with numbers. acronym.

You'd best start believing in hopheads, alienated, because you're in you are one.

Hmm. When I started brewing, i was a huge hophead. 20 years later, I no longer prefer the bitterness. I have always been a big beer type, so doppelbock was a natural way for me to go.Much more malty than bitter . I still like barleywine, but aged. And if one cannot understand what 35 degrees fahrenheit is expressed as 35 d F, thats too bad. Im not going to muck about looking for the degree keyboard character for one thread.

I thought doglover just mistook hophead for a beer guy instead of someone who prefers hoppy beer.

mikefinch:I don't think i had a good scotch because my impressions of Ballantines was ass in a glass, and whatever Jack Daniels is it tastes like gasoline. just so you know how i feel i guess?

Jack is a bourbon. Not a very good one, mind you, and they don't like to use the word because they like to pretend that "Tennessee Whiskey" is somehow different. In reality, it's legally defined as bourbon made in Tennessee where it's defined at all, the term is just marketing. There are other bourbons that do the charcoal filtering, and "sour mash" is a process, not a type of whiskey, and is used in nearly all bourbons and ryes.

As for Ballantines, it's not the worst blended scotch, but it's still a cheap blend. Try a real single malt, maybe even one with a bit of touch of smoke and peat, sometime. Your opinion may change radically.

You claim to be not a hophead, but you prefer jargons and indecipherably specific jargon with numbers. acronym.

You'd best start believing in hopheads, alienated, because you're in you are one.

But he stated that he wasn't a hop head and likes to age his big foot for 5-9 months to calm the hop bite?

If the dude was tossing around IBU numbers and what not... then maybe.. But over all? I like bigfoot, but it really is too hoppy for the style, particularly when its green. It should wait a year or two IMHO.. B-wines should be Malty. but they should start with an aggressive hop background to balance all the residual sugars.

The stuff we make in the beer mines goes through about 9 months of cold conditioning at 40F before we even package it. and even then, we'll only package half of it that year and hold the rest back for funky playing and additional aging. per my previous post, I JUST kegged up the last of the Barley wine that we made almost two years ago, and we aged it an additional 3 months on Bourbon barrels.

that stuff will probably be selectively metered out for another two years...

Because it also mellows and changes flavor. Especially the stronger darker ones. Russian Imperial Stout, for example, is usually aged for months before it gets bottled. I just made a batch of RIP only fermented with a Trappist yeast strain. After fermentation is was really rough and unrefined. After two months in secondary it was smooth and the flavors really came together. All these underlying flavors of plum and dark cherry. Really nice. I plan to hold over half the batch to age it a year, brew the same recipe again next year, and then compare fresh and aged to see the stark differences.

doglover:johnny_vegas: I thought doglover just mistook hophead for a beer guy instead of someone who prefers hoppy beer.

Is that what it means?

Hophead sounded to me like the equivalent of somnilier, somnelier, som- "professional wine snob" in French.

Does it just mean someone who likes hops?

pretty much... Hops, and really hoppy beer is analogous to those that like really spicy food. you can crank the hell out of the hops, and that can be good, if you are into that sort of thing.. but over all, going overboard with the hops, is kinda considered training wheel craft beer. it's easy for the brewer to make hop bombs and hide off flavors with a sub par beer, and then you have the entry level craft beer lovers who equate REALLY HOPPY! and REALLY BOOZY! with REALLY GOOD!

And hop bombs can be really good, if done correctly and with a good sense of balance. but a good way to mess with soebody trying to name all the hops in a imperial double I/APA, is to nod in agreement, correct or not, and then ask them to name the malts and the yeast strain used.

I guess the key, as in most things in life, is to find the right balance between harsh alcohol notes and overly woody notes.

I know that in my own life I strive to be neither too alcoholic nor too woody. These two aspects do seem to work against each other. Too much alcohol means not much wood, and sensitive wood means not enough alcohol. Finding the right balance allows for enjoyment of both alcohol and wood.

cptjeff:There are other bourbons that do the charcoal filtering, and "sour mash" is a process, not a type of whiskey, and is used in nearly all bourbons and ryes.

Yeah -- i bought some cheap jim beam bourbon and it was way better. I know they dont like calling JD bourbon -- but i feel like calling it anything but bling for rednecks is being gracious. Ugh.

I'll take a bottle of nice scotch out to the tower this summer and have a sip every couple of nights. I didnt waste that ballentines though -- i mixed it in to a bowl of eggs milk and sweetened condensed milk. Like baileys but with a scotch flavor instead of Irish...

Cerebral Knievel:I JUST kegged up the last of the Barley wine that we made almost two years ago, and we aged it an additional 3 months on Bourbon barrels.

I so wish that was bottled and distro'ed out here on the west coast .If you folks do ever think of expanding this way- two words Wine Warehouse .I get most of my really good indy / foreign beers from them, and they sell nicely.

mikefinch:cptjeff: There are other bourbons that do the charcoal filtering, and "sour mash" is a process, not a type of whiskey, and is used in nearly all bourbons and ryes.

Yeah -- i bought some cheap jim beam bourbon and it was way better. I know they dont like calling JD bourbon -- but i feel like calling it anything but bling for rednecks is being gracious. Ugh.

I'll take a bottle of nice scotch out to the tower this summer and have a sip every couple of nights. I didnt waste that ballentines though -- i mixed it in to a bowl of eggs milk and sweetened condensed milk. Like baileys but with a scotch flavor instead of Irish...

Different. Good in coffee.

Does a good sour, too. I like the drier, barley flavor that a scotch or irish provides in a sour, but I ain't gonna waste any of my better blends or single malts on one.

As for aging beer -- Unibroue has great beer for aging. They have kick ass beer -- tasty, strong, man sized bottle capped with a cork...

They even have a page about aging when you look up their beers. Caution -- Beer porn ahead. Their site is pretty cool. They make freaking great beer. 25 ounce bottle of strong dark tasty beer? Why yes i do feel like a man. Filter the yeast through your teeth like a boss.

Cerebral Knievel:is kinda considered training wheel craft beer. it's easy for the brewer to make hop bombs and hide off flavors with a sub par beer

I've often touted this theory to others as to why, in the mid 90s craft beer boom, it seemed every brewery's first beer to hit the market was an IPA. Seemed to me like an easy way to work out the kinks while immediately getting something out there for sale. Great to hear someone in the industry have a similar take. Likewise, in recent years with the Imperial hop bombs, I was entirely against them at first because they just went for huge IBUs and ABV with complete disregard for malt. You still need a malt backbone to build off of no matter what. I don't know if you can get Wachusett's "Larry" IPA down your way, but that's a great example of Imperial IPA done right.

mikefinch:As for aging beer -- Unibroue has great beer for aging. They have kick ass beer -- tasty, strong, man sized bottle capped with a cork...

They even have a page about aging when you look up their beers. Caution -- Beer porn ahead. Their site is pretty cool. They make freaking great beer. 25 ounce bottle of strong dark tasty beer? Why yes i do feel like a man. Filter the yeast through your teeth like a boss.

http://www.unibroue.com/en/beers/18/aging

Great story: I was at a beer festival in Boston a few years back and one of the brewers from Unibroue was there. He let me sample a specialty limited edition ale brewed for some celebration that was so strong it almost sat me down. I told him it was really strong for my tastes, and he said, "HA! zat ees only what we geev to za cheeldren!"

My 2 cents:Heres what i do when im mixing: pack the glass with ice. Like full with ice cubes. Pour your first shot in and then pour half your pop in - then your next shot and the rest of the pop and another shot if you want one. The booze on the ice melts it down just enough to smooth the ice surface so your pop doesn't loose its carb when you pour it over -- the surface of the ice is already melted and it wont fizz. Also the ice melts a bit and waters down the pop. Also your booze can distribute across your drink quickly without having to mix it.I love cola but I drink it on tons of ice cause its almost like its to thick sometimes. Like its to syrupy.

AverageAmericanGuy:master luthier: Pribar: once ya pour in the mountain dew does it really matter?

What kind of farking heathen pours pop into whisky

Everyone knows that just disturbs the carbonation. You pour the whisky into the Mt Dew.

And I only use vintage Mt Dew held in storage since the 80s or Mt Dew Throwback in a pinch.

I know you are being superfluous here.. but I gotta say, that whenever I am trying to recreate a vintage cocktail that calls for Cola, I will use Pepsi throwback, Mexican coke*, or Boylans Cane Cola to hopefully get an "authentic" flavor, along with some Bacardi Superior and a squeeze of key lime juice for what I think a turn of the century Cuba Libre would taste like.

If Coke Cola ever decided to make a cane sugar sweetened version of their product in regular production again, I would be glad to use it.

Sorry.. been a professional brewer for the past 15 odd years, been sneaking into the world of spirits for a bit and have been researching the origions of classic cocktails for a while now. I'm too old to be a hipster...

*Mexican coke, may or may not be sweetened with cane sugar, they use what is ever cheaply available at the time of manufacture.

cptjeff:mikefinch: I don't think i had a good scotch because my impressions of Ballantines was ass in a glass, and whatever Jack Daniels is it tastes like gasoline. just so you know how i feel i guess?

Jack is a bourbon. Not a very good one, mind you, and they don't like to use the word because they like to pretend that "Tennessee Whiskey" is somehow different. In reality, it's legally defined as bourbon made in Tennessee where it's defined at all, the term is just marketing. There are other bourbons that do the charcoal filtering, and "sour mash" is a process, not a type of whiskey, and is used in nearly all bourbons and ryes.

As for Ballantines, it's not the worst blended scotch, but it's still a cheap blend. Try a real single malt, maybe even one with a bit of touch of smoke and peat, sometime. Your opinion may change radically.

I agree JD is over-hyped, mass marketed crap, no better than an average Bourbon. All I want to add is try George Dickel before you write off all Tennessee whiskeys. It's fine stuff, quite distinct from bourbon, and very sippable. Get the 12 yr, not the 8yr.

Cerebral Knievel:AverageAmericanGuy: master luthier: Pribar: once ya pour in the mountain dew does it really matter?

What kind of farking heathen pours pop into whisky

Everyone knows that just disturbs the carbonation. You pour the whisky into the Mt Dew.

And I only use vintage Mt Dew held in storage since the 80s or Mt Dew Throwback in a pinch.

I know you are being superfluous here.. but I gotta say, that whenever I am trying to recreate a vintage cocktail that calls for Cola, I will use Pepsi throwback, Mexican coke*, or Boylans Cane Cola to hopefully get an "authentic" flavor, along with some Bacardi Superior and a squeeze of key lime juice for what I think a turn of the century Cuba Libre would taste like.

If Coke Cola ever decided to make a cane sugar sweetened version of their product in regular production again, I would be glad to use it.

Sorry.. been a professional brewer for the past 15 odd years, been sneaking into the world of spirits for a bit and have been researching the origions of classic cocktails for a while now. I'm too old to be a hipster...

*Mexican coke, may or may not be sweetened with cane sugar, they use what is ever cheaply available at the time of manufacture.

dang... the flyer for the evening is nice... Live sushi bar, Prime rib, whiskey et all. A dozen kegs on board,one of them ours... heading out at 6:30 pm, getting back to port midnight'ish.. A bunch of industry folks on board, including some heavy hitters and some legends.. ride to and from the hotel...

"Yeah. Fermented beverages like wine have all kinds of chemicals in, as they're only 12-16% alcohol usually. So they can react to themselves, and usually have a colony of yeast still living inside. Their flavor changes over time because it's still reacting and if you let it go too long it becomes vinegar.

The distilled stuff is boiled to vapor and thus is almost pure concentrated ethanol, then diluted back down with water. There's very little in un-aged booze and it's all uniform. No reactions take place in the bottle. Placing in a cask, on the other hand, lets you get all kinds of chemistry going on, but slowly. So 20 year old whiskey is indeed radically different from 2 year old whiskey. But 18 and 20 might not change that much, even if the price does.

Beer I guess could be aged, buy why?"

Almost all commercial wine is centrifuged, filtered in multiple stages down to .5 or .1 microns, then sulfited and/or sorbated (if it's back sweetened or just a sweeter wine - to prevent "re-fermentation"). So the wine ageing process is independent of yeast. However, there are reaction relating to several other factors. For example, alcohol, phenols, aldehydes and ester reactions, oxidation reactions, settling of tannins oe proteins etc to the bottom of the bottle (hence the need to decant some older wines). Beer has many of the same reactions but often beer is less protected by alcohol (but there are some exceptions - ie Barely Wines, Russian Imperials etc). Hops IBU's will drop out and potentially under go some esterification (be perceived as sweeter vs bitter). Some harsh phenols and higher alcohols can be converted to various aldehydes and/ or esters. Further - many beers are actually bottled with some yeast to aid in carbonation and or preservation but no so much (if done skillfully) to cause autolysis ( yeast break down leading to off-flavors such as "shrimp-like or rubbery).

NightOwl2255:jayhawk88: If reality TV was worth a damn, we'd have a show dedicated to performing double-blind's on beer/whiskey/wine snobs, audiophiles, foodies, etc, with the sole purpose of making them look foolish.

Cerebral Knievel:only really available during passover, if you can get it before it's sold out. unfortunately.. if yer trying to run a bar that specializes in such things... it's not really a viable option.

fortunately, I'm not trying to run a bar like that. or.. run a bar period.. I'm just a beer miner. :D

This is a bit off/on topic but i just recently figured it out and i like to share:

Dr Pepper makes crappy mix -- but WHY? Its got such a cool cola like flavour it should go great with booze right? But it doesnt. Its kinda gross. Heres why:

Dr pepper is booze flavoured already. Its a combo of cherry, vanilla, caramel, a few other minor tweaks -- and the big one you only notice once its pointed out? RUM. Dr pepper has a very definite rum note to it. The reason it doesn't mix well is the rum flavour screws with anything else you put in there. It works best with amber rum and only as a single or weaker.

\Last time i threw up at a party i drank all my booze and decided that i was drunk enough to put up with the taste of gin and dr pepper. I wasn't. I dont think i ever will be.\\I had an epiphany about DR Pepper and i had to share. Sorry.

mikefinch:Cerebral Knievel: only really available during passover, if you can get it before it's sold out. unfortunately.. if yer trying to run a bar that specializes in such things... it's not really a viable option.

fortunately, I'm not trying to run a bar like that. or.. run a bar period.. I'm just a beer miner. :D

This is a bit off/on topic but i just recently figured it out and i like to share:

Dr Pepper makes crappy mix -- but WHY? Its got such a cool cola like flavour it should go great with booze right? But it doesnt. Its kinda gross. Heres why:

Dr pepper is booze flavoured already. Its a combo of cherry, vanilla, caramel, a few other minor tweaks -- and the big one you only notice once its pointed out? RUM. Dr pepper has a very definite rum note to it. The reason it doesn't mix well is the rum flavour screws with anything else you put in there. It works best with amber rum and only as a single or weaker.

\Last time i threw up at a party i drank all my booze and decided that i was drunk enough to put up with the taste of gin and dr pepper. I wasn't. I dont think i ever will be.\\I had an epiphany about DR Pepper and i had to share. Sorry.

well, that's the whole thing... Dr Pepper is classified as a Cherry Cola. It's TOO sweet to work right with most things, the reason that lemon lime sodas work well is because they are, in a way, creating a shortcut to make many "sour" drinks. whiskey sour, margarita etc.. which usually use a harsh sour citrus, and simple syrup to cut on top of the associated booze to balance.Dr. Pepper just overwhelms everything in its residual sweetness to let any thing work.. and like you said.. kinda rummy...

It could work with a high and white rum like 151 but only as a cut, not as an active ingredient, spiced rum like morgans or sailer jerry is right out.. .

like everything.. you are looking for balance...

Gin an Dr. Pepper? really? how drunk were you to think that was a good Idea and are you fifteen years old?

mikefinch:Last time i threw up at a party i drank all my booze and decided that i was drunk enough to put up with the taste of gin and dr pepper. I wasn't. I dont think i ever will be.\\I had an epiphany about DR Pepper and i had to share. Sorry.

Cerebral Knievel:Gin an Dr. Pepper? really? how drunk were you to think that was a good Idea and are you fifteen years old?

/just farksnark ;)

Oh it was a good night. Forestry tech school party. I must insist that i didnt think it was a 'good' idea -- i just thought it would keep me drunk. I really did just pour the last quarter from a twosix into a half drunk two litre bottle and and started to swig away. One good chug in and my face kept making that 'gack fark no! what are you doing?' twitch and I wandered out to the back bushes to regret some stuff and chat with jesus a bit. I wasn't feeling the slightest bit queasy before that stuff hit my lips.

\Question Mr beer expert... If i was bottling a beer this summer in a bunch of growlers, could i add birch shavings to the growler to simulate having been in a barrel? I know you can do it for spirits but can you do it for beer?

mikefinch:As for the rum: One barrel and Three barrel rum from Belize? Anyone know it? So good. Soooooo good. Its hard to find outside of Belize but Canadian liquor stores seem to have it sometimes. (my bumfark town in nowhere alberta has it...)

I've had the One Barrel a couple of times (my friend's parents have a time share in Belize and they used to bring bottles of it back). It's f'ing great stuff.